If built, the Keystone XL Pipeline would transport dirty tar-sands oil across six states and hundreds of water bodies, making any spill an unacceptable risk. An existing pipeline called Keystone 1 has already leaked 14 times since it started operating in June 2010, including a 21,000-gallon spill. Another tar-sands pipeline dumped 800,000 gallons of tar-sands crude into the Kalamazoo River.
When President Obama announced he would reject the pipeline in January 2012, we cheered a victory for our air, land, water, and endangered animals and plants — but we knew the war over Keystone wasn’t over.
Sure enough, on Feb. 7, 2012, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation that would force the issuance of a permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline within 30 days, reversing the president’s rejection.
Neither the pipeline nor its proponents, TransCanada, has disappeared. Congressional Republicans, backed by the oil industry, are claiming that Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL would cost tens of thousands of jobs. In reality, though, according to the State Department, Keystone XL would result in just an estimated 20 permanent, operational jobs in the United States and 2,500 to 4,650 temporary jobs.
The Center for Biological Diversity has been leading the legal opposition to this pipeline. Please support the Center for Biological Diversity and take action by telling the rest of the Senate to stand up to oil-industry pressure and oppose this dangerous legislation.
And now it gets even worse. The National Wildlife Federation released a report stating that because the expanding oil and gas production is contributing to the decline of caribou herds in Alberta due to habitat loss from tar sands development, Canada proposes to kill the wolves that prey on the caribou! Incredibly, Canada’s proposed solution to habitat destruction from tar sands development is to destroy the wolves that prey on caribou, instead of protecting their habitat. Is there no end to this insanity?
If you are interested in protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive, including the human species, you may be interested in the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). The LCV is a national non-profit organization that works to turn environmental values into national priorities. Take a look at their 2011 National Environmental Scorecard to see which elected officials are pro-environment and which are not. You can read the full press release here.
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Thanks for posting this. I agree that all of us who care about the environmental impact should stand up and do something about it.
@Keely thanks for your support! This is such a devastating project, I hope that level heads prevail and keep this catastrophe from being realized. The tragedy happening in northern Alberta is bad enough. See this National Geographic story.
Thanks for posting this. I haven’t even heard a blip on the news about the actions of the House Energy and Commerce Committee .
Larry, thanks for writing about this. I have just the most rudimentary knowledge of its environmental impacts and the political process now in play, But you’ve inspired me to be more involved and informed.